


Dog Tags

by orphan_account



Series: JaegerCon Bingo [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:53:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is written as part of JaegerCon bingo. The prompt was simply 'dog tags'. After Yancy's death, it's the little things,like dog tags, that bring him back to life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dog Tags

They never recovered Yancy’s body. Sure they said they searched, but Raleigh knew better than anyone that those days had been crazy. Kaiju were getting bigger, and Jaegers were getting more and more outmatched. The world was ending and everybody had better things to do than to comb the ocean for one dead body. Maybe it was a good thing they didn’t. In the days and weeks after Knifehead, Raleigh was a mess. He could barely take care of himself let alone handle a funeral and burial.

His days were spent answering questions as doctors poked and prodded every inch of his body. No they couldn’t scan his brain. No he didn’t know how he had piloted Gipsy solo. No that didn’t hurt. Sometimes his mind would drift off and before he knew it he would be convinced his arm had been ripped off or he would be calling out for Yancy forgetting that Yancy was dead. No one could tell what was wrong, but having Yancy ripped away mid drift had done things to Raleigh’s cognitive functions, things that nobody could explain.

His nights he spent in the hospital bed, praying to anything that he could keep his eyes open for a few more minutes. He avoided sleep like the plague, knowing that each time his eyes closed that the dreams would come. Every night he replayed his brother’s death in his head, watching with freshly horrified eyes as his brother was ripped away from him. It was like a drift hangover but instead of a residual conection to Yancy he just felt an emptiness inside of him. He was drifting with nothing at all. It was hell.

Once he had healed, he could see no reason to stay in the Jaeger program. Yancy had been his partner and Yancy was gone. He wouldn’t disrespect Yancy’s memory by drifting again. Raleigh refused to even return to the Shatterdome, scared off by the memories that he knew would lurk around each corner. The only things he owned were two pairs of clothes that Tendo had dropped off and his dog tags.

The dog tags were the only thing that had been salvaged from his body. Gipsy Danger was totaled and his suit was shredded all that remained were the tags. Raleigh thought of his brother’s tags floating in the ocean somewhere and grabbed the dog tags in a fist. Walking out of the hospital, he paused holding the tags over the trash can at the nurse’s station. He didn’t need them anymore, he wasn’t a soldier. His hand wouldn’t open though. Instead of dropping the tags in the trash he let them pull the chain taut and then slipped them over his head. He stuffed them into the neck of his t-shirt so that he could feel the old metal against the skin of his chest.  
That night he slept in a new bed, but he still fought sleep. When his eyes eventually closed, and the dreams came they were finally different. Yancy was there, grinning like an idiot.

‘I can’t believe they want us, bro.’ Yancy was young, just of the Jaeger Academy.

‘I miss you, Yance,’ Raleigh admitted, eyes swimming with tears. It was just a memory though, and Yancy said what he had said all those years ago.

‘You and me little brother, we’re gonna beat these little Kaiju shits.’ Yancy laughed and put his dog tags on. Yancy threw an arm around Raleigh, and Raleigh sat up in bed suddenly. He had felt it. He had felt his brother’s arms around his shoulders, even then he could feel the phantom limb fading but it had been there. Raleigh blinked away tears and laid back down, one hand wrapped tight around his dog tags.


End file.
